Swans
by irmaida
Summary: "She's floating on clouds. Her fifth year at Hogwarts seems like an eternal dream—lazy days with Cedric, cloud-gazing, dancing at the Yule Ball, sipping butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks. (But no it isn't. She falls from the clouds and the seemingly-eternal dream ends, and when she does, she falls hard and reality is even worse than she remembered.)" Cho. Moving on.


_Swans_

\

**Present day**

Birds chirp, the tree blossoms are in bloom, and the sky is a perfect azure blue. The perfect day for the wedding. Her wedding. She's in her wedding dress already—a short, simple white dress—and the wedding is in a little less than half an hour. But she had thought that maybe she would take a short walk up the hill and stare up at the clouds in the sky. It's such a perfect day. And so, being careful not to ruin the dress, she sits down on a bench and looks up at the sky.

One of the clouds looks like an apple, she thinks. She must be too old to cloud-gaze, but it never gets old. There goes a violin. Oh, and that one is a—

("Look, Cho," says Cedric, pointing at the sky. "That one's a swan."

"I love swans," she says, looking at where his finger is pointing. A cloud shaped like a swan. "It's beautiful."

"Like you.")

—a swan.

_She can't do this._

**Then.**

**(But to her **_**then **_**is now, the past she will never be able to let go.) **

She's floating on clouds. Her fifth year at Hogwarts seems like an eternal dream—lazy days with Cedric, cloud-gazing, dancing at the Yule Ball, sipping butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks. The dates where they go drink butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks are always her favorite. It's where they have the best memories. It's where they met, her literally running into him, dropping bags and everything, during her third year. They were friends before they even started dating. It's where he asked her to the Yule Ball and began dating. Where they spent countless days at, over butterbeer.

Where they can gaze and clouds together, and life is wonderful.

\

But no it isn't. She falls from the clouds and the seemingly-eternal dream ends, and when she does, she falls _hard_ and reality is even worse than she remembered. Life is terrible.

Her heart has stopped.

She refuses to believe it. But when she sees his body, so terribly _lifeless_, she knows that it's true.

He's gone.

Forever.

\

She'd loved him.

Before Cedric, she would have refused to believe it was possible to fall in love at sixteen years old. It was too early, of course; who ever heard of you marrying your Hogwarts boyfriend? She had never understood friends of hers that had cried over a boy for months on end, claiming that they had been in love and heartbroken.

_It's too early for heartbreak! _She had thought. _And we're too young to fall in love!_

She is right, in a way. They are too young for heartbreak. But cruel fate doesn't care, and so it breaks her heart anyways. She had thought, maybe, they could grow up together, get married, be Hogwarts sweethearts, and someday have a family together. She had loved him.

And at his funeral, although she refuses to speak, she stares at his face before they close the coffin and vow that she will forever love him.

And she cries.

\

She hates herself for loving Harry.

No, it's not love, this thing she's feeling. Nothing like what she felt for Cedric. It's—it's _need_. It's this need to get close to someone, to tell someone, to talk to someone. A _need _for love. Because she has a hole in her heart that can only be filled up with him. But she goes along pretending and tries to fill it up. And nobody understands. They sympathize, they give her hugs and kisses and tell her to cheer up and pretend to listen her, but she knows what they say about her behind her back.

_Cho crying in the loos again? That girl is just going downhill, huh?_

_And she missed the Snitch again too! She better pull her act together. Ravenclaw can't lose!_

_I hear she's dating Harry now. And so soon after Cedric's death! That girl has no sense of dignity, or respect! _

The worst part about it all is that she knows they're right. She _is _going downhill. Her grades are at an all-time low, and she always feels wet and awful, always crying or having red eyes from recently crying or wanting to cry. And she _is_ missing the Snitch often. Her flying is just getting worse and worse. She's bringing the entire team down. And Harry, oh Harry—she _is_ dating him. She did kiss him so soon after she promised Cedric. She doesn't have a sense of dignity or respect. She's just awful, she's just _terrible_; why in the world is she alive?

She hates herself for betraying Cedric so soon.

\

Sixth year was the worst year of her life. She almost fails her classes, she loses Harry, she even loses her best friend, Marietta Edgecombe. But somehow, she survives. And life goes on.

Not too long after the thing with Harry falls apart, Harry begins dating Ginny Weasley—pretty redheaded Ginny Weasley who is sixteen years old, the age she was when she fell in love with Cedric. The difference, of course, is that Harry and Ginny will have a happy ending. Of course they will. Everyone can tell they're in love, and although it's rumored that he breaks up with her afterwards, she knows they'll get back together soon.

They'll be the Hogwarts sweethearts she wanted to be with Cedric. They'll be the ones that grow up together, get married, and someday have a family together.

Meanwhile, she dates other boys, trying to fill up the hole. She takes advice from her friends who tell her to move on with life. She knows they mean well, but after dating a few non-Cedric boys, she realizes that nothing can fill up the hole. And she's just betraying Cedric. She had promised. So she stops dating boys at all. Instead, she focuses on her studies and Quidditch and rebuilding her life. She graduates Hogwarts and, despite her terrible sixth year scores, gets into a wizarding university. Things get better over time. But she keeps her vow—she stops dating boys. She doesn't even notice them most of the time.

Then the war happens. She keeps up with the news, reading the _Quibbler_, and hiding, although there is no real reason for her to go into hiding. She's half-blood so at least she doesn't have to worry about herself, but everyone is affected. She and her parents huddle up in fear, and they even refuse to send her to the wizarding university. But nothing can stop her from going to visit Hogwarts when the Galleons they used to use for the D.A. call her. She Apparates in the middle of the night and leaves a note, hoping her parents will understand.

\

After Hogwarts, after the war and everything, after she somehow survives and Voldemort doesn't and Harry wins and he and Ginny get their happily-ever-after, just like she knew they would, she goes to visit Cedric's grave and gives him flowers, like she does every year. She talks to him, in quiet whispers, like she does every time she comes to visit him, like she does in her dreams. She tells him about the war ending, and about her new job in the Ministry of Magic. She tells him she loves him.

The new Minister is much more open towards Muggles, and Cho has entered into the Muggle-study department. She, along with a team, has begun working on ways to incorporate Muggle technology for Wizard use. Like cellular phones. Of course, wizards had the talking Patronus and speaking via Floo-powder and magic talismans like the two-way mirror and everything, but cell phones seemed so much simpler.

And so this is how she goes along for the next few years. She, along with her good friend Leanne, find a Muggle shop on sale for cheap not too far from the Ministry of Magic and buy it. They renovate it into an inhabitable flat and then disguise it as a dingy telephone-repair shop. Most of the Muggles ignore it. It's close to her family too, and Leanne really is an excellent roommate. In addition, they're making excellent progress on the project.

Life is looking up.

\

Except, after around three years of living together, Leanne makes an announcement that she will be moving out in six months. And Leanne is worried for her.

"Cho, I'm getting married in six months. Good old Rick finally proposed."

"That's great news, Leanne!" she says. She is genuinely happy for her friend, who is pretty and kind but seems to have trouble with men.

"Yeah it is," says her brown-haired friend dreamily. And then she frowns. "I mean, no, no it isn't, not for you, Cho. It means I'll be _moving _out of the flat. You'll be alone here, Cho. It'll get awfully lonely, and no matter how happy I am, I can't go off being happy with Rick knowing that you'll be here, living alone…"

She rolls her eyes. "Leanne, forget it. I know what you're getting at, and _no_, I'm not going to go find a nice guy to go off with. I'm not." The truth is, she hasn't told Leanne about Cedric. She rarely tells anyone. She met Leanne after Hogwarts and the war, and _long _after Cedric. And as wonderful as Leanne is, why should she tell her? All she'll get is the same look of pity and the same old "advice" about moving on and how Cedric would want her to be happy, blahblah.

Leanne blushes. "That was _sooo _not what I was getting at! So not!"

"Sure, and I'm a unicorn."

\

When she comes home from work one day, exhausted after a business presentation, and sees some man sitting at her kitchen counter, she's positive that Leanne must have called him in.

"Go away," she snaps at the man. "I don't know what Leanne told you to get you here, but I have a boyfriend and I'm _not interested_."

The man blinks. Once, then twice. "I, er, actually wanted you to fix my cell phone."

She pales, then reddens at an alarming rate, feeling like a tomato. "I'm sorry. I have a friend, who's always insisting on me getting a boyfriend. She doesn't get that really, I _have one_." She sits down, and then, rethinking it, frowns. Because Muggles never _ever _come into the telephone shop. Most of them don't even _realize _the shop exists.

"My grandfather is a Squib," he says, as if having read her mind.

"Oh," she says, everything clearing up and the blush starting to die down. "So then, are you magical too?"

He shakes his head. "Muggle through and through. But I had the most fantastical relatives, and I always remembered them. I'd been suspecting about this place for a while. Today, I decided to muster up the courage and visit."

She smiles. "So then, how long have you been spying on us?"

The man blushes. "I haven't been spying!" He pauses. "And my phone really is broken. Can you…?"

Her smile grows wider, and she flicks her wand and mutters an enchantment, easily repairing it. "Not a problem. I'm Cho, by the way. Cho Chang. Pleased to meet you."

\

The man's name is Robert Dawes, and they grow to be friends. Close friends, but nothing more, no matter how much Leanne pushes them together—forcing them to go on "little outings" which are really double dates with her and Rick, and all that. She ignores Leanne and laugh it out. Besides, she knows that Robert can't possibly feel the same way.

(But for some reason, she's incredibly relieved when she learns Robert doesn't have a girlfriend.)

And then, six months from the day they meet, the day Leanne and Rick get married, where Cho is one of the bridesmaids and Robert is just a guest despite him being a Muggle, they all party and celebrate so hard, and sometime after the reception, when it's late at night and Robert is driving her home (because, despite her working in the Muggle studies branch of the Ministry, she still has _no _idea how to drive and quite frankly, is too tired to Apparate), he reaches her house and proposes.

He handles the question lightly, casually, like, "Hey Cho, you want to get married one day?"

And in the midst of the casualness and somewhat drunk on thoughts of love and Firewhisky, she for some insane reason says yes and then Robert drops her off at her house and she goes home wondering _what in Merlin's name just happened _and what and what and _Cedric_.

\

They don't talk about it for a while after that.

Actually, for a full week. They go on as if it never happened. And Cho would have preferred it that way, to be honest.

Except the thing is, Robert doesn't. And he comes to her house and tells her that he meant it when he asked her to get married. They don't need to get married now, but maybe in the future, and he's loved her since she yelled at him that she had a boyfriend and fixed his telephone. And she loves him too, doesn't she?

The truth is, she does.

And it scares her.

So she runs.

\

For an entire month, she completely avoids him like the plague. Robert Dawes? What Robert Dawes? But Robert has other plans, hanging around the flat that she now lives alone in so often that she ends up having to sneak in either by Apparating or using the Floo network or using a Disillusionment charm.

It's terrible, honestly, almost worse than her sixth year. Her head is in a frenzy over Robert and Cedric and what Cedric would think and the promise she made and _am I using Robert to fill the hole up or do I love him_, and _what if he goes too _and _how can he still love me after I've turned him down_?

It gets so horrible that she finds herself at a Muggle bar. She never drinks. But tonight, she does. And coincidence of all coincidence, she runs into Robert there. Also drinking.

"I'm sorry," they both say at the same time.

"I wasn't thinking—" he begins.

"And neither was I," she interrupts. And, in a desperate attempt to fix things up, she says, "Why don't we forget all this happened and go back to being good friends?"

And then Robert frowns. "Cho, why are you afraid of me?"

"I-I'm not afraid of you."

"Yes you are, Cho. I don't know what happened to you in the past, or why you're so afraid of love, or anything, but Cho, I want to help."

And that's when she breaks down, and for the first time in many years, she tells someone about Cedric. Everything about him. And when she's done, he doesn't look at her with pity or give her stupid advice.

He looks at her as if she is the strongest woman in the world and says, "Cho, I won't pretend I understand or even know what you should do. But I want to help you heal."

**Present day**

Today she is getting married.

She looks up at the swan in the sky, thinks of Cedric and Robert and everything that brought her here, to this moment, where she is staring at the swan and on the verge of tears, and closes her eyes. And when she opens her eyes, the swan seems to smile down at her.

"Cedric?" she wonders out loud.

And then she looks around at everything else around her, the beautiful view at the top of the hill, and somewhere far away she can hear wedding bells signifying the beginning of an occasion, and she remembers, _Oh, the wedding!_ Grabbing her high heels, she sprints down the hill. And then she is walking through the aisle, smiling at the many guests that have come—Leanne and Rick, Harry and Ginny, the Weasleys along with several new, cute little baby Weasleys—couples that have reached their happily ever after. And now, she will too.

And then she looks up at the man at the end of the aisle. Up ahead, the swan winks.

And she can do this.

* * *

Written for lilgenious in the Gift Giving Extravaganza 2013, for March I. I hope you like Cho/Cedric! Hope you enjoyed!


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